Philosophical and Financial Run Around

Brain has to recharge.  Can’t get clear.

Things I’m pondering with no real answers right now:

Continuing the degree.  My school is being unreasonable and though not actually coming out & saying they’re refusing to send me an itemized bill, I’ve asked for one seven times now and still have nothing.  They just keep referring me to the online finances tab but that’s where the confusion has come from to begin with.  They say I owe $834, the financial current due reads $151.  Most recently I was told that, since I didn’t have a payment schedule set up on my finance page to pay for the thing they’re saying I owe but won’t provide a bill for, I’m going to be suspended from continuing classes.

When is the last time ANYone just forked over $800 because someone said ‘Oh I know your finance tab says you only have a current due balance of $150 but this is for last year.  Last year’s bill (that the disbursements from federal aid covered) is what you owe.  Pay no mind to the actual figures.  Oh yeah & sorry but we don’t generally send out bills.’  Or something to that effect.

So here’s the deal.  The real deal, the crux of it all.  In bullet point format (which doesn’t make it any easier to choose the right answer but it does make it faster to type).

Ø  I’m a year away from graduating with a bachelors in English.

Ø  I’ve wanted to finish school for a very long time.

Ø  I’m too close to the end to give up now.

Ø  I recently read some disturbing news about Ashford University and some financial practices that make this situation sit even less well in my gut.

Ø  I’m tired of being in debt.

Ø  I’m never going to stop accumulating debt if I continue going to school anywhere.

Ø  I am nearing the end of a long road but no matter how tough the battle does it really make a difference in the end?

Ø  I want to be able to say that I hold a bachelor’s degree in English.

Ø  I am about to publish a book without a degree.

Ø  I don’t need to take classes called Mind & Machine to self-publish a novel and be a Writer.

Ø  I’ve been a writer for years, now I’ll be a published Author; all still before any diploma would show up.

Ø  I’m sick of school impacting my everyday life.

Ø  I’m afraid of leaving now only to have to start repaying loans in 6 months when I haven’t even sold a single book on the open market yet.

Ø  I’m less marketable in the mainstream job market without a degree.

Ø  I could give a crap less about the mainstream job market and will do just about anything to ensure I can work the way I want – from home, typing for a living and on “tour” singing for my supper.

Ø  I join organizations and no one has asked where I went to school, only what my book is about.

Ø  I’m getting a headache thinking about all of it.

I’m lost with no clue how to solve this volley in my head.  And I could go on for about 600 more bullet points but somehow I don’t think that’s the best source for curing writer’s block you know?

It’s really something to consider because the money already spent isn’t entirely a waste, I gained a lot of knowledge so far, but how can I really truly show that without having that piece of paper in my hand?  And if I leave now isn’t that money all a waste in the long run?  Or is it?  I just don’t know anymore but I do know that I feel like getting a degree is great but getting it from a University that has apparently been using potentially shady practices with hundreds of student’s money really catches in my throat.  Mostly because now I feel like I’m one of them.

Matt says I should just contact the Attorney General in the state of Iowa if they continue to refuse to give me an itemized bill.  Maybe I should do that anyway.  None of this stuff showed up when I first Googled Ashford University when I first considered them as a higher education option.  I’m a 4.0 student but this entire thing just escapes me as making any sort of logical sense.

I know I have to dig deep into my heart & soul to find the answers, I was just hoping I didn’t have to dig into my wallet because that was what financial aid was supposed to be for.  And if I do decide to just pay them so I can resume my classes how invested am I really going to even be now?  Will I slack off knowing all that stuff above has bubbled to the surface or will I continue as usual studying hard and getting good grades?

Most importantly though, what if the exact same thing happens at the end of my next year of school? 

My brain is about to cave in.

Where I've Been

Its been so long since I posted here that at this point most people have probably dropped me from their reading list anyway.  Sorry about that.  Wait, no I'm not.  And even if I was, or said it out loud, those who I'd be fake apologizing to wouldn't be reading it anyway because they're not here anymore right?  Right. 


Anyway, want to know what I've been up to?  Here's the email I received this morning when I logged in... 

"Dear Jenn,

On behalf of the Faculty and Staff at Ashford University, congratulations on being named to the Dean's list for Summer 2011. Your appointment to the Dean's List is published on the Ashford University website under the Academic Superstars link. (Note: If you have submitted a request not to release or publish information about you, your name is not included.)

 
Your dedication and commitment to your studies make you a great role model for others to emulate. You and your family should feel quite proud of your accomplishment. All of us at Ashford University share in this pride as well and believe that students like you help make Ashford University the quality learning institution it is.
 
Again, congratulations for a job well done!
Sincerely,

Dr. R.W.

Provost

Ashford University"

And also about 6 weeks ago I was invited to join Golden Key which is an unbelievable honor and priveledge.  Not everyone gets that invitation, only the top percentage in the class and it makes me happy to know that the dedication I've put into my studies is really paying off.  Matt is convinced I'm going to get recruited by my University after I graduate.  I don't know about all that, it would certainly be very cool if it happened, but unless its a home based position I'd have to turn it down.  Not a chance in hell I'm moving from the warmest, least expensive, sunniest place in this country for Iowa.


Anyway, its pretty exciting to be in this place in my life and even if no one is reading this anymore I at least wanted to put it out there.

I don't generally run around telling people how awesome I am or anything but I've worked extremely hard to get where I am in my degree program thus far and have sacrificed a lot of stuff to make sure I maintain a 4.0 GPA so I'm pretty stoked to share the news.

See you all in 16 years when I can get my fingers off the keyboard and face out of my textbook long enough to post again!  I hope everyone is enjoying their fall!

Cheers Love Jolly Good Show!

That’s ‘hello my friend and you’re doing great!’, right? Lord knows it’s probably all wrong. I am so not immersed in British custom, language, anything at all. Although I am a huge fan of Absolutely Fabulous and Love, Actually, and that whole country in Epcot Center is on my list of favorites because, well, there’s a pub. But when it comes to the literature, yeah, not so much a fan.

So of course it’s a little painful that my final class before we move is British Literature I and it starts today. Yes, that does mean there is a Brit Lit II on the way and it starts up a couple weeks after we get to Arizona. But I can’t even think about that right now because my first assignment in this class is to read and complete 2 written assignments on Beowulf.

Oh god.

Want an example of why I’m freaking out? Okay, here’s my first assignment: “Find one passage from pp. 29-51 of the textbook in which the poem encodes the theme [of salvation through sacrifice] in an image, a statement, or a plot event. Reference the chosen passage by line number and a brief quotation. As recognition of the great story of this hero and an indication of the universal appeal of this epic, identify one other quest story from any culture and describe the hero’s quest in that story. What echoes of Beowulf are apparent in the story you have chosen to describe? (You may use film or literature for your reference.)”

Its not that I don’t love to read things that are old or about all kinds of characters in fictional worlds, hell, Lord of the Rings is certainly a favorite, but there’s just something about the formality of British writing that leaves me a little cold. And based on the request above, LOTR is likely what most people will pick as their comparison epic. That’s fine of course but I don’t want to do what everyone else is doing. Then again, other than LOTR I never really get into epics so what else can I do? Then I noticed that the assignment mentions film as a reference material for the comparison epic so I started thinking about Beowulf the movie.

I started to wonder if maybe I could rent it as a supplemental study guide. At least it might provide a minute semblance of sense then and while reading I would have that a-ha moment where somehow I can complete my week’s assignments with no problem. But it wasn’t available on the Netflix instant queue so I became a little defeated.

So last night my sister suggested I hit the library. And, um, yeah, duh! I go to the library all the time I have no clue how that didn’t occur to me. I’ll be enjoying lunch out today then I’m heading right for the library; hopefully they have it and I can watch it this afternoon so I can get a better grasp on this poem.

I wonder if there’s a film version of anything by Chaucer or Milton that I could take out while I’m there. Because those dudes and Beowulf are pretty much my choices to study for the ten page final. Five weeks tends to fly by so I’m definitely thinking about the final. Not to mention we have to choose our topic and research additional sources for it this week. Oh yeah and two of the sources we have to list have to be not viable for use. Um, what? Why am I being assigned work that isn’t going to be useful? Seems pretty recoculous to me. I already can’t wait for this class to be over.

And luckily I’ll have almost 3 weeks off in between the two Brit Lit classes.

God help me if I am going to be forced to read any Jane Austen in the second class because, and I’m sorry to say this as a Chick Lit writer myself, but her books are awesome for when I’m having trouble sleeping. Snooze fest extraordinaire. Bor-ing is an understatement.

I wish we were reading a whole lot of Shakespeare but regardless of the man’s obvious impact on the literary world as a whole we get one single sonnet. Yup, just one, and not even until week 4.

Luckily between the two classes its only 10 weeks of my life because I think my brain is likely to pop right off my body otherwise. Pretty clear what I won’t be teaching someday huh?

Right-o. Cheers!

I Wish I Could

We had a power outage here this morning, right when I was in the first few sentences of writing up this blog post and, not knowing how long it would be before it came back on, I figured it would be a good idea to fly through a shower before all the heat went out of the little hot water in the tank. Once that was over I had all kinds of errands to run and then came right back to dive into a bunch of necessary life stuff, but I wasn’t really stressed about not getting a post up, it’s only a blog right? Besides, I’m supposed to be posting ‘a picture of something you wish you could forget’ but I just remembered I have more school work to do.

School.

So this week is the first of my new class, American Literature from 1865 to Present Day, and compared to the last class, Lit through 1865, I already feel a little calmer. Rather than 300 pages a week of reading we have 30. Manageable and reasonable for adults returning to school who have more priorities than just reading. But the paper due this week is another story.

I have to write a narrative essay on something I’ve experienced that was completely American. Now I know what most of you are probably saying ‘that’s a no brainer for you Jenn, just pull up something you’ve already written, tweak it and use that’ and I’d agree with you. But I already asked and I’m not allowed to use something I’ve already published.

Oh no, that’s not good.

Considering I’ve been writing this blog now for three and a half years I’ve shared almost every experience that would make for a really good narrative essay. So I’ve been sitting here instead, wracking my brain, trying to figure out what to use as a topic.

I really wanted to use my post on 9/11 as I felt it could epitomize the narrative style, as well as comprised of all the elements we’re supposed to include, and nothing could be more American of an experience. But being brutally rebuffed on that, I literally went blank.

Instead of freaking out, even though I have plans all weekend and will find it difficult to find time to write it other than today, I started reading back through the last three weeks of this posting challenge. I figured maybe I briefly mentioned something I could use. But nothing is ringing as a good topic that could hold up for three succinct pages.

Stupid academia! If it wasn’t for the fear of plagiarism I bet I could use my formerly written piece. Sigh.

Once I got finished rehashing the past month, I turned to reading everyone’s intro posting in class thinking that maybe someone mentioned something about themselves that would resonate with me and spark a memory where I’d yell ‘YES!’ and start furiously typing out my three page, double spaced masterpiece.

But I got nada.

I turned on the television for background noise and the super campy “Adventures in Babysitting” was on. As if I could change the channel! Of course that started me thinking back on being a teenager and doing stupid teenager things. I mean, I never climbed out onto the side of a skyscraper in Chicago or anything but maybe there was something there to use.

But the movie’s been over for a couple hours now and still, zilch is coming to mind.

I texted Matt to ask him what I’ve done. He basically wrote back the text equivalent of a shrug.

That pretty much brings you current in my day.

Chirp…chirp…chirp…

Maybe I’ll write about baseball. Don’t they call it the All American game? If only I could remember my first trip to Fenway and caught a foul ball while sitting next to Pesky’s Pole or something. Now that would make for a great essay.

Think writer’s license to, let’s just call it, embellish, applies to school work?

Wait...what was my post supposed to be about today?  Huh, guess I "forgot".

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Catch up on anything you missed  30 Photos, 30 Days
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A Big Fat Slacker! Where Blog Posting is Concerned...

If you follow both this page as well as my company blog you're going to see the exact same post in both places today. I'd apologize for that but I'm far too busy to let it bother me. 

Work has been great lately, I've been painting and meeting with some folks in an effort to kick start a little business again. I love the networking, love my company and my job. I only wish it didn't take so darn long to work it because by the time people are ready to hire me, Matt and I will be moving!

(hint, hint -- get me now before we're gone)

That's another thing though, the move. We are intending to take almost nothing with us because after years of living like we're still in college (in our mid/late 30's) we're both ready to finally upgrade our furniture on the other side. Of course that means we're selling it all and with me being the at home spouse right now, the picture taking, description writing and listing location decision making falls on me. No biggie its just that its a lot of work to research all that stuff and list it!

It will be nice to have a few extra bucks in our pocket to make the journey with though.  I've learned never to take for granted the free time I have (whatever that means) because I am truly blessed to be able to pursue the things I want to accomplish in life.

Which brings me to school. My University is awesome and they've scheduled me for a 2 week break in order to move. The really cool thing is that a class ends the very day we plan to leave so the schedule barely even has to shift.  Score!

So anyway, with school, work, pimpin' business and general life living, my blogs have really fallen by the wayside. I don't intend to give them up though (never!) so I hope you'll stick around for the times when I do post. And I promise to comment soon, I try to still read all of yours even if I simply lurk around the blogosphere in the background saying nothing.

Yes, I painted the picture above, it is my latest work. 
Yes you can own it if you like it. 
Yes I've been spending a lot more time painting smaller works and murals lately than full walls but that's cool, it still leaves me with tinted glaze under my fingernails at night and I love it!

Details Schmetails

When I woke up on 1/11/11 I became a non smoker. Again. Technically I guess you could say it happened on 1/10/11 seeing as though I flicked my last cigarette at about 11:30 that night but details schmetails.

This is the umpteenth time I’ve tried to quit, as anyone who has read this blog long enough knows, but I have a feeling this one might just stick because I’m really tired of gasping through my workouts. When we joined the P90X family last year Matt & I decided that upon completing our first twelve week round we were going to quit. So quit we did!

I tend to be a hypocrite in a whole bunch of areas of my life -- calling myself Green but turning the heat up any chance I can get, eating healthier yet still smoking -- so I guess this is the first step in trying to rectify that problem.

Okay, technically that isn’t entirely true. I first started to correct it by saying I wanted to write novels full time and then actually began the process of querying Agents to have my manuscript published. That is working out pretty good as I just had an agency request to read the first two chapters of the book based on just the query. I sent that along the other day and will wait the prescribed two-three months for a reply. It might be a request for more, it might not, but either way interest is being generated and I’m thrilled.

Thankfully they didn’t request the synopsis seeing as though I still haven’t had the mental capacity to turn 230 pages into 20. I guess sometimes I also work better under pressure so I’ll do it when I have to.

Maybe that’s not the best solution but it’s all I got right now so it’ll have to do.

Smoking has been a part of my life for all of my life in some capacity or another as most of my relatives on my dad’s side were smokers before I was even born and some still are now. I started at about age fourteen in a casual, social way but really became a smoker at eighteen. That was when I graduated high school and was no longer involved in sports.

I’m starting to see the connection to athleticism and inability to wheeze while in the midst of that athletic activity. Shocker, I know.

Plus that’s almost twenty years ago now. Scary thought that I’ve been poisoning myself for that long. With so many other changes afoot this one should be a no brainer. Something I don’t even have to think about because it just makes sense.

But that’s the very place I start to go mad -- my mind. The body is almost out of the physical withdrawal symptoms now and chewing the replacement gum has helped with that a lot but last night I was definitely in the bargaining phase in my head. ‘If I could only be that type of person who has a smoke just after dinner…’ But I can’t. So I won’t.

Matt is using the patch and so far he seems to be doing okay too. I think he’s been at it almost as long as me so I’m sure he’s going through a lot of the same internal stuff I am. We’re trying not to be cranky or take it out on each other. So we pretty much haven’t said boo to each other in the past three days.

That would be okay in most situations seeing as though he goes to work outside the house but yesterday he worked from home because of our second “blizzard” in as many weeks and I think we said about three words to each other all day. I just chewed a lot of gum and focused on my class while he rubbed his shoulder under the patch and focused on his job.

Speaking of, my first class is going pretty well, it’s a Psychology course though (which usually escapes me) and I’m already looking forward to my next class, Genres of Literature or something like that. In this one we’re studying all manner of human development and how physical, mental and social aspects in our lives directly relate to how we grow and shift as adults.

Socially I don’t really hang out with any other smokers on a consistent basis, besides Matt, so that’s helpful and physically I’m tired of experiencing the negative effects of it on my body so, again, that is an easy jump. Like I said, it’s all in my head now.

And I will move past it, I just know its going to take some time.

Class Is In Session

A while back I indicated that one of my goals was to reenroll in school and that I had started doing some research on colleges that offered degree programs in English that I could complete online. There were a handful of schools here in the Boston area I started with but many of them were a split of campus and online classes and that wasn’t going to work for me.

Its not that I’m lazy or don’t want to meet other people. The real reasons I like studying online truly fall into just two categories -- 1. class starts & ends whenever I want it to and 2. I don’t have to drive anywhere in the snow. Yes, I mean that second reason whole heartedly.

I really considered Salem State because they have an excellent English Lit BA with a track for an MA but I knew on snowy days (okay, this is Boston so probably even some not so snowy days) it would take me upwards of an hour each way to get to and from campus. Then add in the hours spent in class. Okay, but that’s just what happens when you go to college right? Wrong.

In the time it would take me to commute to and from, I could have completely finished another class if I was studying at home.

With that in mind I knew online was the way to go. Again. This foray into continuing my education would be the third try. But this time I’m doing what I truthfully should have done at age eighteen; I’m finishing a program that speaks to me and one I am passionate about. Unlike my last college experience.

I had started a program online with The Art Institute a whole bunch of years ago and to be fair the only reason I left the program is that I knew it wasn’t what I really wanted to be doing for a living. Interior Design, I quickly found, was loads more about politics and number than actual design.

Plus the hours I spent on school (up to and sometimes beyond forty a week and that was per class) made me question if that’s the kind of time I would have to spend per client because it wasn’t my first love and I had to really work for it to get it a lot of the time. Two clients a week and I would have been a puddle of goo.

Now I suppose it’s probably fair to point out that I am what most would call an uber overachiever. I have an innate fear of failure which keeps me motivated to forge on and throw myself one hundred and seventy percent into whatever it is I am doing. School was no exception and I was a 4.0 student because of it.

But the other thing about me is I also have instinctual intuition and I know when the exact second hits that I’ve stayed too long at the party. When I stopped caring if I got my work done, started completely fucking off and decided I would rather play and play all day instead of complete my class work, it was that moment to thank the hostess and bow out gracefully.

So I did and ever since I’ve been itching to go back.

In my sophomore year of high school I knew what I wanted to do. I was good at it (like I mentioned in the post about editing my friend’s paper; more on that in a minute) and really loved it but at age fifteen I had little, if any, self direction or discipline and without being the top of the pack or the bottom of the pack in school I kind of just faded into the very gray middle somewhere, unrecognized but also un-guided in my life path.

At some point in my life, and I really truly have no idea when it happened, I did a complete 180 from total slack-ass procrastinator to seriously over the top OCD overachiever perfectionist. So now that’s where I am today -- the land of striving for perfection, happy to be a geek, doing it all at once without the assistance of any good drugs (well, except caffeine in the mornings of course).

I found a school that really resonated with me and started researching them right away. Based in Iowa but offering a BA with a track to the MA online, fully accredited and well received from all I found when I Googled them, Ashford University is my new school.

And I already love them! My Academic Advisor is based out of San Diego and not only is he the most easy going guy, he’s really knowledgeable and helpful and he insists on being in touch a couple times a week during the first couple classes just to make sure I’m getting the hang of it all. The entire Administrative staff has been great so far and the application process as well as all that financial aid mumbo jumbo was super streamlined on their website. Unlike some of the other schools I looked into where the admission process seemed like it would be more difficult to figure out than the classes!

So starting on January 4, 2011 I’ll officially be a Bachelor of Arts, English major! (But we all know I’m going on for the Masters, I mean seriously…)

In the long run the degree will open up so many more worlds of opportunities to career paths I can pursue if I so choose (like teaching at the college level in many places, being an editor, etc) but the most important thing is that I will feel the sense of accomplishment that I’ve been longing for the past twenty five or so years. And it will ultimately help me when writing novels of course so that’s always a super bonus.

Oh yeah, and that paper of my friend’s that I helped her edit? Yeah, she got a 93 out of 100 so I guess I’m choosing my path well since clearly it was something I already excelled at. (High five for my friend getting an A!! Holla!!) The difference now is that I’ll just have a better handle on all those pronouns and will be able to prove it with that little piece of paper that reads ‘Graduated’.

The Time Has Come, a Fact’s a Fact

I run around all the time saying I am a writer but then I never really write anything and it has come to my attention that I am tired of this behavior. So in an effort to actually follow through and become the writer I know is itching to streak across the page, I have decided to do my best to write a little something on my blog everyday for the entire month of May. Some of the stuff I write will be total crap (most likely today will fall into that category) but occasionally a tiny little gem will sneak its way out of my fingers and make its way to your brain where it will be absorbed and laughed about for centuries. Or at least the five minutes it takes to finish reading it.

In an effort to further my “this is really what I have wanted all along, duh” career move into writing I am re-enrolling in school this fall. I have spent so many years trying to fool myself into thinking I wanted to be an Interior Designer or a painter or a seamstress. Admittedly it is true that I do a pretty kick ass job at all of those things but that is simply because I have ‘Over Achiever Perfectionist’ syndrome and if I take it on I will do my best to get a 4.0 in it. A 4.0 GPA in the subject of life is just way too much pressure for this little scrappy gal to handle so it is time to pare it all down.

I have never been one to take on less than my share of projects, in fact most of the time it is too many and one thing or another suffers but I refuse to let it go. As a kid I was smart, straight E’s on my grammar school report card, and then at some point I decided that smart was not cool. When I think back on my high school days I would like to say I was lazy about school work, or that my smarts had simply faded away, but in reality it was the thing I let suffer. I had academics, gymnastics, a job, friends and a boyfriend to focus on; one of those things was surely going to fall further away than the others.

Everyone told me they “knew I could do better” when I graduated high school with a 2.4 GPA. I knew it too but it would have meant less time hanging out, making out or working out and that did not feel right either. I had spread myself so thinly across all of my activities that I became nothing more than average at everything and that drove me insane. So when I went to college as an adult perhaps the O.A.P. took over but I spent at least forty hours a week on my studies to maintain the 4.0 I was so proud of. The problem was I did not truly enjoy the program I was in so the work I put in was meaningless and yet again certain aspects of my life began to suffer; most notably my relationship with Matt.

Once we moved back to Massachusetts and I left the Interior Design program to start my own faux finishing business I ended up with a lot more time on my hands to begin writing down all the things that really mattered to me -- Matt, friends, happiness, love, a clean house, words, music, family, food, bills paid on time and kindness. It was only after I let go of the things I thought I should have that I discovered all the things I really want.

So who knows what all of you might read over the next 30 posts but I hope you enjoy it none the less; I know I would enjoy writing it even if no one was reading.